As a controversial crypto investor John McAfee called out to US SEC for a TV debates, an assassination attempt was made to silence McAfee.
What was that: the revenge of the authorities, a PR stunt, or maybe he wanted to take a vacation from the public life? We’re gonna tell you the full history of John McAfee and dive in the assassination attempt too.
The IT genius
John McAfee was born in Scotland, in 1946, but his parents immediately moved to Roanoke, US. There’s little known about the early life of John, rumors say he had already opened his first business there. It was a small post delivery company that functioned within the city.
In 1967, McAfee finished Roanoke College and acquired a Science Degree in mathematics. The evidence of his hard studies is the consequent application to NASA right after finishing the education. But John wanted more, and in a few years, he had tried himself in different large corporations until he started working on anti-virus software in 1980, which eventually defined his professional life.
In 1989, John McAfee became one of the world leading specialists in computer network security. He then decides to work for himself and founds a company called McAfee Associates which releases the first conditionally free antivirus McAfee.
Investment, Belize, and Assassination
In 1994, McAfee sells his company for $100M and becomes a venture investor. He has worked on various projects but not so successfully. Because of the global financial crisis of 2008, John’s possessions decreased for 25 times down to $4M. He then turns on the saving mode and moves to Belize, a place typical for retired Americans because of its loyal tax policy.
But McAfee didn’t intend to retire. Using his remaining funds, he launched a new business for antibiotics production. It would have been unknown how his project developed further if it weren’t for police infiltration of McAfee Villa in 2012. They then accused the businessman of selling illicit medications. John fired back with all the necessary documents and accused the local authorities of illegal persecution because he had refused to give bribes earlier.
McAfee sued the Belize government and was prepared to defend his rights, but on November 10th 2012, his close neighbor Gregory Fall was found shot in his own house. McAfee didn’t wait for the police and hasted secretly on the run to Guatemala, where he claimed that Fall’s assassination was a provocation, and that the killer was meant for McAfee, it’s just that he entered the wrong house.
The government of Guatemala refused McAfee the asylum and decided to extradite him to the US. Thus, John returned to his motherland. He was never accused of killing Gregory Fall and the crime was never solved.
McAfee as a crypto celebrity
After his return, John found his place in the world of cryptocurrencies. He starts calling himself an investor and a miner. He also began working on professional promotion of young cryptocurrencies and ICOs. He assembled a small team for preparing startups, while the main PR campaigns went through social networks. On McAffe’s twitter there are just 845 000 subscribers alone, which allows him to accept the payment per one advertisement tweet for more than $100 000.
In the crypto world, McAfee is known as a friend of Roger Ver and a man who well...promised to eat his own male organ if Bitcoin will not cost $500 000 by the end of 2020. He then backed down from his promise….only to increase the bet to $1M. Besides that, John casually agitates against bankers and authorities, claiming that they are all evil, and that Bitcoin sooner or later will destroy the US dollar and a financial system with it.
US SEC, ICO, and the assassination attempt
On June 19th 2018, John McAfee suffered an assassination attempt, he was poisoned. This information came from John’s twitter on June 22nd. He published the photos from the hospital and said that he laid unconscious for two days but already knew the perpetrators of his assassination attempt. He promised to release his full fury at them. In two days from then on, McAfee tweeted a photo of an unknown man on the bike and promised the reward of $5000 for an information regarding the man. Nobody knew except John whether the man on the photo was the mysterious poisoner, a murder orchestrator, or … just a man on the bike?
Here’s several versions about who could order a hit on McAfee. Firstly, it’s the US authorities because John has repeatedly criticized them and promised to destroy the chairman of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on the public debates. He also promised to run for president in 2020.
Secondly, on the day of the assassination attempt, McAfee announced he will not promote a certain ICO because of the government pressure. Perhaps John had already taken the fee but refused to fulfill his obligations.
Thirdly, the persona of McAfee may be inconvenient for crypto market competitors. After all, right after the discharge from the hospital, he announced his personal crypto wallet and marched with war to the crypto stock exchanges, his specific target of boycott was HitBTC.
We’d like to note that John is already 70 years old and he is far from finishing his story. We will definitely keep the tabs on the life of the most-known crypto grumps.